Faithful Philly Forum

This just in. Penn School of Nursing has found that nearly half (41%) of those in nursing or social work positions (presumably that is medical social workers) would NOT choose their profession should they have it to do over because they are experiencing feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, fatigued and a sense of powerlessness. This is being called “Moral distress”. They see the unfairness in the medical system in the distribution of resources (among other ethical andmoral issues.) There was a prayer request  at Church on Sunday for a young woman who has a painful cyst on her ovaries but who has no health insurance.  She is living on painkillers until she works enough days to qualify for coverage so she can schedule surgery. When it comes to health care there is much moral distress! How can this country of riches have 9.4 children without health insurance, especially when 90% of those live in working families. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and director of the Children’s Defense Fund, speaking at Penn this week on the occasion of the Martin Luther King celebrations said, “I had no idea how hard it would be to get this country to do what is right and moral for our chidren.” Moral distress indeed! We could use some shifts in its moral priorities.

It is now official that FOX and CBS will use sex to sell anything and will promote sexual content in shows (”In 2005, 70 percent of all television shows and 77 percent of prime-time shows contained sexual content.” according to Planned Parenthood.)  But, refuses to allow a condom commercial if the focus is on pregnancy prevention! Seems they will only allow such advertisments if it stresses health issues!

Now given the number of Viagra ads this is a most curious double standard. So the message of morality is men can and should be sexually potent and using pornography on tv is acceptable for primetime viewing but our “morality” won’t allow us to educate or promote anything to prevent pregnancy? This is wild! 

I just saw Sicko and found it funny and sad, provocative and enraging! It is a strong case for national health care. Just like we have a safety net for senior citizens with social security (unless Bush has his way and dismantles it) and a “socialized” free public library system, police force, fire protection, etc this would provide the safety net that other western countries already have in place. The highly successful programs in England, Canada, France are all documented in this film. So now President Bush has announced that he will veto a bipartisan US Senate plan to expand the health care coverage for children! Any thinking person would ask what has he got against the children? Sick ones at that? Why?         

Because according to his spokesperson, he suspects that people may drop their (read: expensive) coverage and “go on the government-subsidized program.” (NYTimes 7/15) In other words, this is an admission that they know people are desperate for health care, low cost health care. And since, we know that the cultural mandate of the elite is to give away nothing free, (unless it is to large corporations!), then he is against more money for the children!

   “And when you do it to the least of these my children, you have done it to me.”